BRANCH COUNTY, Mich. — Police say a 37-year-old Branch County woman and the person she allegedly struck with a car Saturday inside a Walmart store both received injuries.
The Branch County Sheriff’s Office says the Walmart customer’s injuries were minor, but the suspect had to be taken to ProMedica Coldwater Regional Hospital for treatment. She’ll be taken to jail, after that.
The string of incidents began around 7:30 a.m. Saturday. Deputies were dispatched to Rick’s Party Store on North Angola Road in response to a Breaking-and-Entering alarm, according to a Sheriff’s Office news release. Deputies arrived to find the front door had been damaged. Police say they searched the store, and noticed several items appeared to have been taken. But the suspect was gone.
Moments later, they got word from Central Dispatch that the suspect was now at a Speedway gas station on Chicago Street, near I-69. Then, they heard the suspect had left the gas station and was driving on U.S.-12. Coldwater Police officers and Michigan State Police troopers converged on the area, but it was a Sheriff’s deputy who later spotted the suspect vehicle in the Walmart parking lot “disappearing into the east entrance of the building.”
All of the officers then responded to the store, and found the suspect – and one customer with a minor injury, who refused medical treatment. The Branch County Sheriff’s Office says she’ll be formally charged – after she’s out of the hospital.
